


A Fistful of Omens

by saretton



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Western, Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Bearded Aziraphale (Good Omens), Bounty killer Aziraphale, Childhood Friends, Crowley is bad at his job, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Guns, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outlaw Crowley, Rating May Change, Spaghetti Western, a bunch of homages to Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy, fictional smokers are hot, frenemies to lovers, gunfights, we are here for some aesthetic my friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:42:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24824764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saretton/pseuds/saretton
Summary: Aziraphale took a match from another of his pockets and scratched it on the counter, then brought it to his lips. Crowley watched the action in fascination – how Aziraphale cradled the tiny flame with a gentle calloused hand, even though there was no risk of it being snuffed out.Yeah. Some things never change…“You didn’t smoke at Eden Town.”“This isn’t Eden Town.”---Arizona, 1880s. Two childhood friends meet again by chance after several years. As they discover that neither of them is who he used to be, they'll have to join forces to face more pressing matters, like a ruthless gang of riders or the fact that, despite everything, they can't seem to stop coming to each other's rescue.Written for the Good AUmens Fest.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 55
Collections: Can't no preacher man save my soul, Good AUmens AU Fest





	1. Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Good AUmens Fest fic!
> 
> Thanks, first and foremost, to [TheKnittingJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi). You’re a wonderful beta and a friend that knows how to scold my brain correctly if it doesn’t behave. You’re the kindest and most enthusiastic cheerleader in the world.
> 
> A big thank you to my two Ameri-pickers, [chewb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewb/pseuds/chewb) and [ZehWulf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZehWulf/pseuds/ZehWulf) – you helped this European add the right Western flavour to the story.
> 
> The GIF/cover for this fic is made by me, but again with hints and suggestions. Thank you [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock) for mentioning some useful stock image websites and [MovesLikeBucky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MovesLikeBucky/works) and [D20Owlbear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeforeCrimson/pseuds/D20Owlbear) for your help when it came to creating and compressing the GIF.
> 
> Thank you [bisasterdi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisasterdi/pseuds/bisasterdi) for putting together this massive event; an avalanche of thanks to the lovely people of the Good Omens Event and Americana Omens servers, your joy and energy has been precious during these months. Y'all are the best!
> 
> And thank *you*, dear reader! I hope you enjoy. :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion.

Dust.

Not the thin layer you can find on your shelves, on the table, on the floor. Not the thick, airy lumps that feed the monsters under your bed.

Desert dust. Crumbled down particles from rocks older than humanity, red and pink and brown. Speck after speck of canyon earth sticking to your boots and muddying your throat.

Sun.

Not the one you feel on your skin on the first day of spring. Not the white disk rising above the mountains at midwinter.

Desert sun. Arizona sun, frying you sunny side up. A sun that cracks the earth and burns your shadow long and dark onto the ground when it sets on the horizon.

Wind.

Not the gentle saline breeze coming from the sea, raspy and energizing. Not the zephyr of the hills carrying hopeful and tender perfumes to your nostrils.

Desert wind. An annoyingly warm one, lazy breaths turning into boiling hot air as soon as they die down. Surprisingly cold, mocking, stingy whirls at night during the winter.

And now imagine: unfurling among them, metal roads, iron tracks straight as a die, reaching the horizon one iron bolt at a time, diving into the sunset.

Horses and carriages and cattle and shrubs, they all melt into a blur in front of your eyes. The steam leaves its trail in the sky like a ship in the ocean. The whistle blows and yells the triumph of speed and movement.

Postal stations here and there. Towns made of rich settlers and big-hearted ranchers and shady outcasts. There are stone houses already in the East, safer and sturdier; there are wooden buildings in the West, young and a little crooked, easy to break into, easy to burn down.

And still people can’t get enough; they’re on the move, on and on, more and more towards the setting sun, faster than any train, more hopeful and determined than any high noon.

Here is where our story – _their_ story – begins: in that liminal space between the old and the new, between sunlight and dusk, among bullets and lassos and leather and horseshoes.

Here it begins – in that vast and mythical space that people like to call “the Wild West”.

\--------------------

The desert was unusually hot that day. The season when your feet boiled inside your leather boots had yet to come; still, the heat was intense and sizzling and arrogant, and it threatened to summon a storm. The quivering air blurred the edges of the lonesome cacti on both sides of the road and in the distance – tall, green, shy mushrooms of the desert.

The clouds, however, still seemed to be far away. Perhaps they were just waiting for the next coach.

Anthony Crowley had been riding alone on that same dusty road, arriving at noon on a horse that was blatantly tolerating his company and lead (and the feeling was mutual). Crowley had been all too happy to dismount and tie the bridle to a hitching post next to the butcher’s shop; an unexpectedly perfect position, given that, in the evening, he was going to come back to rob it.

Actually, Crowley had no intention of spending much more time than necessary in that God-forsaken place, whatever its name was. If it even had a name.

He had planned just a quick and hopefully harmless robbery in a shop like any other in an insignificant Arizona border town. With any luck, he’d rip off just enough cash to last for a week or so. And butchers always had a nice pile of dollars in those tills.

Yes – just a quick and hopefully harmless robbery.

He would shake his gun around, cover his face, yell at the right moments. The butcher or whatever assistant would be in his place would get scared enough to give him the money without fighting back or fainting. Then, the best thing for a quick getaway was to have his horse at hand, and that was where the close-by hitching post came useful.

Yes. Just a quick and hopefully harmless robbery.

Anthony Crowley’s life was a life of crime. Always on the run, moving from town to town, from county to county. Sometimes even from one territory or state to the next, to places where his name and features were still unknown.

He often acted alone, but he wasn’t exactly a lone wolf. After the robbery, he was to reunite with his small family of outlaws, some ten miles further north. From there, they would’ve planned their next move, which town each of them would go to, and all the business alike.

They were an odd group. Despite the blood bonds, any of them would leave their relatives to fend for themselves without a second thought, should things go awry. Still, at least Crowley had someone to come back to, and that was enough for him. Life in the desert could be lonely.

After an extensive tour of the small town, looking around, gathering information from rumours and gossip and looking inside the butcher’s shop as subtly as he could, Crowley decided he could very well treat himself with a nice drink before taking action.

The main (and only) road was semi-deserted. Everyone seemed to have something better to do in the shade of their wooden houses and shops, with the only exception being the kids and a handful of passers-by who unashamedly eyed Crowley’s bizarre attire and features.

Admittedly, anyone who laid eyes on Crowley could have identified him later. He had his own aesthetic, but he had no intention of toning it down and blending in. “If you have to be an outlaw,” he always said, “you have to know what to do. Do it with style.”

His style included long, dark red hair tied back; small sunglasses that made him a little suspicious-looking; embarrassingly tight and vaguely impractical jeans; matching pieces of clothing – black with calculated red details in his open vest, in the handkerchief knotted on his throat and in the hatband. The spurs of his snakeskin boots tinkled gently after his steps, and the blazing sun shined on the rattlesnake-shaped belt buckle. He even had the idea of including a snake tattoo next to his right ear for good measure.

In short, Crowley was noticeable, to say the least.

That’s why he moved often with his family, who had chosen to be equally flashy in their own ugly way, and they picked carefully the counties where they still weren’t wanted. That boringly peaceful Arizonian town was exactly what Crowley needed to pass mostly undetected and do his job freely.

Inside the saloon, someone was playing the piano. Funny that a tiny town like that could boast its own pianist. Crowley could imagine him perfectly, even before stepping inside and laying eyes on him: worryingly slim (just like him), mock cheerful and snarky (just like him), but deep down, an endless and ill-concealed bundle of nerves (just like him). And, Crowley could bet, like in any other damned border town, none of the people enjoying his lively music was paying the slightest amount of attention to him. Not until he risked being shot, of course. Entertainers were almost a luxury good, and entertainment of any kind could pay pretty damn well, if provided generously and with skill. _And_ if you managed to avoid saloon brawls and gunfights. All in all, it was a rather dangerous job. Just like Crowley’s. Perhaps a little less fun.

The piano music was the very first thing of the saloon that could be noticed from the outside, even before seeing the wooden board dangling to and fro during windy days. It just lured people in. That late afternoon, as it happened almost every day, people were starting to come in. Crowley followed their example.

He looked around, letting his eyes take in the human menagerie gathered inside. Everyone was slacking off, wasting money, committing sins or simply shooting the breeze.

The tables displayed all sorts of peculiar specimens, grouped together and laughing intermittently in ugly voices. The smoke of pipes, cigars and cigarettes spiralled high, towards the ceiling, seeping silently in the private rooms on the upper floor; thick and foggy stripes, ceaselessly fuelled by the smokers downstairs.

There was a man at the bar. Crowley spotted him immediately, as soon as he stepped into the saloon. There was a sort of halo around him. He stopped, lowered his small sunglasses a bit to double check, but – yeah, no mistake. It was him.

He could have recognized that man from a mile away, even without seeing his face – Aziraphale Fell, the sheriff of Eden Town. Spotless clothes, blonde-white curls, strong arms, large shoulders, and a broad back that could have rivaled a bull's. In fact, Crowley remembered perfectly well how Aziraphale had literally taken an enraged bull by the horns and calmed him with his soothing voice, once. Everyone had talked of a miracle, but it hadn't been anything of the sort. Crowley knew it had just been _Aziraphale_.

Back then, in their early twenties, Aziraphale had just become the youngest sheriff in the history of Eden Town. Crowley remembered his gentle voice, his cultivated words, his firm and meaningful silences. His high sense of duty and justice.

Crowley really couldn’t have thought of anyone more suited to become a sheriff than Aziraphale. He’d always looked like he was born to protect and guard.

So what the Hell was he doing there, far from Eden Town? Didn’t he have a job to do, anything to protect anymore?

Only when he was shoved aside by an incoming customer did Crowley realize he had been standing just inside the saloon doors. He ignored the rudeness of the new patron to keep studying that familiar man.

He still couldn’t see his face from where he was, and his hair was mostly concealed under a soft-looking beige hat. He did catch a glimpse of Aziraphale’s beard, though. “Remarkable” was the first word that came to his mind. Thick, fluffy and neatly trimmed like he’d just popped out of a barbershop. In the dark light of the saloon, it looked like wheat.

Aziraphale hadn’t had a beard, in his youth. Crowley remembered he’d always liked to be clean-shaven. “It makes you respectable and friendly,” Aziraphale used to say. “People can always see your smile better, without a beard.”

He wondered what could have changed, now that Aziraphale sported one and took good care of it, too. Maybe he didn’t smile that often anymore, after all those years.

Back when they had been kids in Eden Town, they used to play together almost every day – chasing each other around the well, watching the coming and going of strangers and coaches and horses, sitting in silence on the fence just outside the town, making up wild adventures and dangerous rescue missions.

He remembered Aziraphale as a plump kid in breeches and suspenders over a light blue frilly shirt, his trademark blond curls already in place. A small cherub, all smiles and sweetness and joy, so different from the gloom and the seriousness of his father, the town’s lawyer.

Crowley, a settler’s son who had always been frowned upon for his red hair, had found a faithful friend in that smiling child – someone who didn’t judge him for the color of his hair nor called him ‘insufferable demon’ for his temper and his disposition to ask too many questions.

They’d grown together into their teenage years, then into their youth. Crowley had remained as slim as a scarecrow; he just got considerably taller. Aziraphale, for his part, had developed a nice amount of muscle, mainly visible in his arms and in the shape of his thighs, though he was still well-padded and soft-looking on the whole.

Not much of a surprise, since Aziraphale had always liked food. He also liked people, but as he grew up, little by little, he’d started preferring to spend his evenings with one of his father’s books or chatting on the porch with selected friends. Among them, of course, was Crowley. In short, Aziraphale had become the quiet, humble and kind man that could make any town proud, while Crowley had followed his family’s steps and helped them with their small ranch.

Despite his newfound tendency to be lonesome, Aziraphale had always had a smile on his face; and as a consequence, everybody liked him. Back in Eden Town, he could have had any girl he wanted. He just gave off an aura of strength, protection and wealth that made women faint and their fathers nod in approval. Still, Aziraphale had always backed away from courting and proposals, turning down every potential wife skillfully using his soft words and his polite smile.

He seemed content like that.

The mystery of that man in the saloon, so familiar to him but suddenly so foreign after all those years, intrigued Crowley and made him itch with questions.

He eyed Aziraphale a little longer, considered the pros and cons of speaking to him. Eventually, his usual need for answers got the best of him.

Crowley waded among the tables full of gamblers and harlots and drunkards and a couple of well-disguised respectable people among them all, until he reached the bar. He hopped on the empty wooden stool next to Aziraphale and raised his index finger to the bartender. Might as well order his drink. That was why he was there, after all.

"Say, if yours ain't a familiar face," Crowley uttered as soon as he was sure the bartender had spotted him and was serving his whiskey. Funny how, just like the pianists always knew what to play, the bartenders always knew what to serve.

The blonde man looked up from his glass, cradling it with both hands. It was almost empty. He realized Crowley was talking to him, arched an eyebrow, stared for some seconds. Then his icy blue eyes lit up in acknowledgement and a slow flash of teeth appeared on his face.

“Well, sake’s alive! Are you…?”

“Yep, it's me alright,” Crowley cut him off. “Long time no see, right, Aziraphale?”

“Long time, indeed,” Aziraphale said, taking a final sip and emptying his glass. He arched the other eyebrow too and smirked. “‘Lil’ Tony’, eh?”

Crowley nearly spat out the drink he’d just started sipping. “That’s… a name I don’t use anymore.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, but he wasn’t surprised. At all. He seemed to be teasing, like a cat with a mouse.

_Well. That’s new. Different from the good old Aziraphale of Eden Town._

“In that case, what do people call you these days, my dear fellow?”

Crowley looked around to make sure that no-one was paying attention to them, then said through gritted teeth, “‘s jus’… jus’ Crowley now.”

Aziraphale, for some reason, seemed delighted. “Well, _Crowley_. Nice to meet you… again.”

Crowley beamed in turn. “Small world, uh? I still remember the time you sheltered me in your house when that big storm came. How old were we? Twelve, thirteen?”

“Oh, no. No more than ten.”

“Gotta take your word on that. Seems like my memory’s turning to horse crap, lately. But I do remember stealing an apple from your kitchen before going home.” He gave a wobbly smile.

“You think I didn’t realize it?” Aziraphale smirked.

“A man can dream.”

“Ah, Eden Town…” Aziraphale sighed, evidently plunging into memories. He leaned back a little, as if he’d been sitting on the rocking chair on his porch, and he laughed again, quietly, all dimples and eye wrinkles, looking at the ceiling. For such a sturdy man, Crowley thought, his neck could be very flexible, bending backwards like that, behind that pale blue handkerchief knotted on the nape. “That place’s been getting more and more melancholic in my memory, since I went away.” He sighed again. “I wonder what’s become of it.”

Crowley raised his hands defensively, as a kind of a joke. “Don’t look at me, haven’t the faintest. I haven’t been there for years, either.” _Frankly, I don’t even know if I could go back at all. Given who I am today…_

Aziraphale nodded with a sad, strained smile. “I remember when you and your folks left. The eviction order… Damn nasty business, that one.”

Crowley couldn’t help grinding his teeth. He took a generous sip of whiskey. “Yeah, fucking unfair, if you ask me. I wonder what you could’ve done, as a sheriff. Not that I hold anything against ya, y’know. I wondered, just… out of curiosity.”

“I could have done nothing, that’s what,” Aziraphale answered immediately; but the edge of his voice and the corner of his eyes were all loose threads and regret. “You just can’t mess with banks. If they tell you that a railroad station must be built where your house is, there is nothing you can do.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself saying those words.

“Yeah. Nothing.” … _Nothing legal, at least._ “It was sad, leaving Eden Town like that. And you’d just been made sheriff. What was that, couple of years?”

That laugh again. Aziraphale laughed a lot, for someone who had lived in the West all his life. He’d always been like that.

_At least some things never change._

“If a couple of years are a short time to you, then – yes. You’re right.”

“Well, truth be told, I also thought that, with your position, you had kind of a- a steady job back in Eden Town. Everyone seemed to think highly of you there, mmh? Loved you, even.”

To his surprise, Aziraphale turned serious. He didn’t answer.

“I mean. Didn't ya have a star with you?” Crowley asked with earnest curiosity, but also teasing, tilting his head sideways and leaning ever so slightly towards him. There was no sign of any kind of brooch on Aziraphale – neither on his long coat nor under it.

Aziraphale put a hand on his chest and lowered it after less than a second, like he’d forgotten himself. He mumbled something, or so it seemed. Crowley hadn’t expected to see him so self-conscious all of a sudden.

“You were the _sheriff_ ,” he pressed on. “I remember, that star was shining like anything. Pure gold. Pretty little thing to wear, uh?”

He dared elbow him, but Aziraphale kept still and quiet, looking at unfathomable truths laying at the bottom of his empty glass.

Still, if there was one thing Crowley couldn’t do it was keep his mouth shut. “So, what happened? Bet ya got all crooked and they had to kick you outta town-”

“I gave it away.”

Crowley’s sunglasses slid an inch down his nose. He gaped. “You what?!”

“I told you. I gave it away.” Aziraphale scratched his dark blond beard. He sighed, then he rummaged in one of the pockets of his cream-colored long coat and pulled out a cigar, bringing it to his mouth.

Crowley blinked behind his sunglasses. For a moment he had thought Aziraphale was kidding, but there was no trace of amusement on his face. If anything, he still seemed a little self-conscious.

Aziraphale took a match from another of his pockets and scratched it on the counter, then brought it to his lips. Crowley watched the action in fascination – how Aziraphale cradled the tiny flame with a gentle calloused hand, even though there was no risk of it being snuffed out.

_Yeah. Some things never change…_

“You didn’t smoke at Eden Town.”

“This isn’t Eden Town.” Aziraphale waved his hand to put the match out.

The reasoning, though curt, made sense.

Aziraphale puffed a conspicuous amount of smoke from his nostrils. He was looking Crowley dead in the face. Crowley swatted the smoke away – it had a strong, tangy and sweetish smell which he wasn’t as used to as he’d have liked.

At his gesture, Aziraphale chuckled – a low sound climbing up from his belly, up the entirety of his chest and stopping at his closed lips. A warped laugh.

“So if ya ain't the sheriff anymore, what have you been up to all these years?”

“Oh, nothing much. Roaming the country. Doing the odd job. Trying to put a nice sum together and then…”

But he didn't say more. He just puffed out some more smoke.

After some seconds of silence, Crowley shrugged. “Well, as much as I'd like to hear what you'd do with that nice sum, I admit I’m… more interested in how you got to be here now.”

Aziraphale studied his face, slowly chewing the end of his cigar. “You never got tired of asking questions, did you?”

“I s’pose. It’s just me, ain’t it? Just who I am.” Crowley paused to smile, sliding his glasses down his nose a little to look at him. “So? Won’t you tell Lil’ Tony? Your old friend?”

Aziraphale huffed a third cloud of smoke from his nose. He never took his eyes off Crowley.

“Stuff happened. Some time after you left, a new family came. Nice people, hard working settlers. Adam First, he was called, and his wife Eve. They… needed a place to stay, were good people, and… well, Eve was expecting already. Long story short, I ended up giving my job away to him, and I left.”

Crowley slowly lowered the glass he’d been drinking from. “You just… left? But… I mean. What about your house?”

“Oh, by then I’d been living there on my own. Too many rooms, if you ask me. By contrast, they would be needing more space pretty soon. So I just gave them the house, too.”

Crowley tried not to gape again.

That man. That man seemed too kind to be real. Too good, despite the ways he’d changed and the new layers he had. Giving jobs and houses away to just start going around the country, doing… whatever the Hell he was doing. No normal person would ever think of doing something like that.

The evidence was starting to imply that, in fact, Aziraphale had never been a normal person.

 _There must have been another reason for him to up and leave_ , Crowley thought. But asking a thing like that after all those years felt too forward.

“Are you sure you did the right thing?” Crowley asked instead, squinting behind his dark lenses. Paired with his black clothes, they made him look like a gravedigger. Crowley didn’t complain. It had its advantages.

“Well, I certainly hope so. But I can’t be sure, can I? I’d have to go back to Eden Town to know it.” Aziraphale seemed to imply that going back was absolutely out of the question.

Crowley couldn’t blame him. Sure, their youth in Eden Town had been beautiful and carefree. But both of them still remembered the day Crowley’s family had been evicted and their house had been torn down to make way for the new branch of the railroad.

Crowley had no reason to go back. He had no house anymore, and more importantly, by then he was a well-known bandit in the area. He simply couldn’t set foot in Eden Town or any of the places nearby without the risk of spending a lifetime or three in jail, thank you. The farther away he was, the safer.

“I don’t know if I did the right thing,” Aziraphale was reasoning aloud, “but at least I know I left our town in good hands.”

“You… you know it?” Crowley whistled. “How?”

Aziraphale thought about it. “I just do, I guess. I always _know_ a good man when I see one.” There was a twinkle in his eyes that caught Crowley by surprise. “Now if you'll excuse me, Lil’ Tony – I mean, _Crowley_ …” and he winked, “…I have somewhere to go. You're staying in town for the time being, I reckon?”

“Yeah. Got… got some work to do here, too.” He would actually disappear in a matter of hours, or even less. But it was better if Aziraphale didn’t know what had become of him.

Not that he was ashamed of what he did for a living per se. Someone could even think of him as a hero – going against the law and all that. There was a vague but very specific aura, around outlaws… like fallen angels, unpredictable avengers.

This was seldom true. At least, Crowley felt that it wasn’t like that for him. It was just a job, really.

Still, the fact that Aziraphale, a childhood friend, an intrinsically good man who’d been his sheriff, could discover his current “profession” made Crowley uneasy.

“I imagined as much,” Aziraphale said. “Well, if that's the case, see you around. Maybe we could find the time to catch up some more, while we're both still here.”

Aziraphale put out the cigar on a dirty dish that some other customer had left behind on the counter and stored it away in his coat pocket. He stood up from the stool, straightened his vest and checked the hour on his pocket watch. Golden, Crowley noticed. Like the ring on his pinkie finger. His new job, whatever it was, had to pay real nice.

Aziraphale lowered the wide brim of his cream-colored hat in a kind of greeting, with a mysterious smile. He turned around and headed out calmly, slowly, without looking back.

"Say," Crowley asked the bartender as soon as the sound of Aziraphale’s boots vanished beyond the saloon doors, "that man who's just left… He doesn't happen to live here, does he? Is he the sheriff?" 

The bartender, nonplussed, kept drying a glass using a cloth that had seen better days. "Sheriff? That ain't no sheriff. Though we need another one here, instead of that good-for-nothin’ old man." He moved his upper lip, wrinkling his nose, and his thick moustache made a small dance under his nose. "Nah. He told he's roamin', lookin' for cash, right? Solitary, quiet. Looks rich, but doesn’t like showin’ off too much. I’m pretty sure your friend there's a bounty killer if I ever saw one."

Crowley's blood froze in his veins.

Aziraphale. Ex sheriff, altogether good man, mild mannered and against violence. The kid who had offered him shelter from the sudden storm when his ranch was too far to reach, the man who had soothed a bull using his voice and his bare hands.

Aziraphale – a bounty killer.

If that was true, there was no way he hadn't known who Crowley was those days and what he did for a living. Crowley was an outlaw. An insignificant one, yes, but there were still people respecting him somewhere for his so-called subversive actions. He had a bounty on his head. There were posters with “Wanted” written in capital letters under his face, and in several counties.

And yet, if he’d recognized him, Aziraphale hadn't said a word. He'd just talked. Joked. Let him go.

 _“I always_ know _a good man when I see one.” Was that really about me, too?_

"Thanks," he muttered in the general direction of the bar, tossing a couple of coins on the wooden counter. He may have been an outlaw, but at least he was an honest one.

He went outside. The sun had sunk a little lower below the horizon during their brief chat, and dark clouds were starting to gallop closer.

Aziraphale was already nowhere to be found. Crowley imagined him, hidden somewhere, studying the town, probably; or resting in the shade or at the inn before riding to the next stop of his chase; or gathering information from entertainers, chatterboxes, drunkards and the likes.

What were his methods? Was he still merciful? Had he become ruthless? How did he surrender criminals, bandits and outlaws like Crowley to the justice – dead or alive?

Crowley, very stupidly, had been so absorbed in the conversation and in the surprise of meeting him again that he hadn’t even checked if Aziraphale carried any weapons. Now he knew he must have had a firearm in a holster concealed under his coat, most probably. Still, what was his weapon of choice? A revolver? Then again, he could still use a rifle. But which ones? How well could he shoot? (Damn good, his brain supplied. The thought made him shiver and sweat lightly.) And did he ever use cold steel, or a whip?

Crowley smirked. Aziraphale was right: he’d never get tired of asking questions.

Crowley could still feel the presence of his old friend somehow – his laugh, the twinkle in his eyes, the soft-looking coat, and his beard and his eye wrinkles that were still new to him. All of a sudden, he needed to know even more of Aziraphale’s new side. Was he actually his enemy, now? It had looked like they were still friends, and…

The bell of the town’s small chapel chose that moment to strike the hour and shake Crowley from his stupor.

Six o’clock. Shit. It was getting late.

Crowley shoved all those thoughts into a back pocket of his mind. He’d think about all of that _later_. He had a job to do. He could still make it in time.

He just hoped that Aziraphale would let him rob the butcher’s shop in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently writing/editing chapter 2 and I will post it as soon as I have a good grip on chapter 3.
> 
> Come say hello on [Tumblr](https://saretton.tumblr.com). :)


	2. Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A robbery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to my beta, TheKnittingJedi (the sweetest miracle worker) and to my trusted Ameri-pickers, chewb and ZehWulf.
> 
> CW: guns and gunshots. Please take these warnings for granted from this chapter onwards, as they will inevitably appear again.

Taking shelter from the late afternoon sun, Aziraphale rocked gently on the front porch chair near the entrance of the tiny hotel where he’d been staying. The heat wasn’t so merciless in the shade, and the fast-gathering clouds promised a sudden change in the weather anyway.

He watched silently the few inhabitants walk from one building to another. Some of them didn’t notice him, or at least they pretended not to, muttering indistinguishable conversations or shouting greetings and remarks to one another. The ones who had met him, though, were polite enough to nod, acknowledging his presence.

Aziraphale had been waiting for his target to show up on the main street, probably riding at full speed and with a trail of dust behind her. He considered whether to smoke some more just to kill time, but he decided against it.

He’d been in that town for some days already. The small gang could arrive at any moment. If he wanted to catch any of them, and _her_ especially, he had to keep both eyes wide open and his mind focussed and clear.

He rocked more slowly, and a hand went to one of his shirt pockets. His fingers traced absentmindedly the semi-crumpled, folded paper of one of the many wanted posters he carried.

Aziraphale was not a good man. No matter what everyone said. At least – he didn’t think he was. Not anymore.

He’d been good in his youth, perhaps. In Eden Town, people always said something about him being good whenever they got the chance.

_Son, if you’re a good man, any door will be open for you. Everything will be easier._

_Aziraphale, there’s never been a kid as polite as you. You’re a model to your friends._

_Mr. Fell, you always have a kind word for everyone. I wonder how you do that._

If some words are repeated often enough, little by little they start to lose their flavor and they become a cage. You’re the good one, and that’s that. You can’t possibly make a mistake or be wrong. Even worse, you mustn’t. It wouldn’t become you, don’t you think? You’re the good one. You can’t break the rules, because you can’t be anything else.

Aziraphale had started wondering if he was just that – “just good”. Good, cultured, polite Aziraphale. Mr. Fell, the good sheriff of Eden Town. Just good, always good, eternally good.

Once he’d realized he was “the good one” in everyone’s eyes in Eden Town, everything had quickly become taxing and itching, like a pair of jeans insufferably tight around his crotch.

Aziraphale’s warp on the loom of life was fundamentally and undeniably made of the threads of kindness, friendliness, politeness and care; but to make a piece of cloth, there also has to be the weft, something that can sneak among those vertical threads and, once beaten tight, keep them together.

The weft, or whatever you wish to call it, in Aziraphale’s specific case was… well. It was the fact that, deep down, he was a bit of a bastard.

He’d learned to mute this part of himself over the years, until he discovered that, perhaps, it actually made him a person worth knowing. It gave him shading and personality.

That was one of the reasons why, once he’d left Eden Town, he’d chosen to become a bounty hunter.

To become skilled and feared in the profession, a certain amount of ruthlessness was necessary. You had to have some guts. As a consequence, he’d had to hone the bastard side inside of him that he’d tried to keep hidden and sedated all his life.

He’d been roaming for almost fifteen years, and by then he’d become something of an expert on bounty hunting and killing. Truth be told, it had taken him a while to get the hang of using guns and firing them. He’d been a sort of pacifist, back in the days of Eden Town.

Aziraphale’s relationship with firearms was controversial. He still didn’t like using them, at least not to kill. However, it hadn’t taken him long to convince himself that perhaps those dangerous trinkets, in the right hands, could give weight to a moral argument. Still, he tried not to think about it. _And_ not to resort to using the revolver (or, God forbid, the rifle) that often. But sometimes the job just _required_ it…

All in all, though, despite the moral dilemma of despising guns in a job that required the use of guns, Aziraphale didn’t consider his life so exciting or adventurous. The time spent gathering information and roaming far and wide, catching second-rate bandits and handing them to the authorities to have cash at hand was long and exhausting.

He had skill, and that had allowed him to stash away a sizeable nest egg already; but the times he’d actually caught someone among the most wanted could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

By contrast, there were people whose lives looked like they were more exciting. People like Crowley, always on the run. Always plotting (however loosely) and _acting_.

He thought of their chance encounter, their brief conversation in the saloon, and he smiled.

Aziraphale knew perfectly well what Crowley had been up to. He knew Crowley was an outlaw. A lesser one, perhaps – not of the dead-or-alive kind, but an outlaw he was. He’d seen some posters of his old friend in his roaming over the years: small and torn and half-covered by other posters with bigger names and larger bounties.

Still… well. He wasn’t sure Crowley knew about him and his job as a bounty hunter. On the contrary, it had looked like he didn’t have a clue.

Aziraphale rocked some more, enjoying the subtle wind that was rising and promising a sudden change in the weather. He shook his head slowly and fondly, as if Crowley had been right there in front of him.

 _Perhaps that’s the real matter, my dear fellow_ , he talked to the Crowley in his mind. _You’ve always been too trusting, always positive, always having faith in people. You know – it could get a bandit like you into trouble_.

There was a sudden blank in his thoughts. His mind hastened to fill it.

 _Perhaps the good one here is_ you _, Crowley. Good, honest, loyal – it’s always been you all along, and-_

He swatted the concept aside like a cloud of smoke. He had little to no time to meditate on it, anyway.

Aziraphale was there on a mission. He’d had been waiting for _days_ for his target, Lady Plague, to cross the town. Tracking her down and getting to know her movements without being noticed had taken him some time. With any luck, he would finally get his hands on her pretty soon.

Aziraphale had never met Lady Plague. No-one knew where she’d come from or what her real name was. It was like she’d always been around, even though she had to be no more than thirty-five.

There were no proper photographs of her, either. The posters only showed portraits of her features taken from descriptions and statements given by lucky survivors: straight and pitch black hair, cunning eyes, a gap between her front teeth. Seeing her smile could be difficult, though; apparently she laughed a lot, but her mouth was often covered with a white neckerchief. Her portrait on the posters was one of the most important clues to Aziraphale, and he kept one of them in the pocket of his shirt.

After years of research, Aziraphale had a pretty clear picture of the whole situation. Lady Plague was part of a gang of four people – the so-called Riders of the Apocalypse, or Apocalyptic Four. There was a bounty of $250,000 dollars on _each_ of their heads, dead or alive. A grand total of one million damn dollars.

Catching even one member of the whole gang would be the greatest hit of Aziraphale’s life, the one deed to end it all – the roaming, the chasing, the shooting. Aziraphale wasn’t made for chasing people around, despite having become pretty good at it after years of practice. He was made for the peace and quiet, the nights spent stargazing on the porch in summer or reading a good book, tucked in and warm in his bed in winter.

He could have chosen a hundred different jobs after taking his leave of Eden Town and everything he’d ever owned. (Not his father’s books, though. Those still belonged to him, in theory. “Take good care of them,” he’d told a moved Adam before riding off. “You never know – I might come back for them one day.”)

He was strong and healthy, and still young. Being a sheriff somewhere else wouldn’t have been the same, so it was out of the question. However, he could have become a cowboy or a blacksmith, or he could’ve tried to start a ranch of his own. He was a man of letters, and he could’ve easily taken up a safe and peaceful job like, well… like his father’s, and become a lawyer. Or a school teacher somewhere, in a small town or in a city…

He could’ve become good old Aziraphale with his good, reliable, respectable job.

Perhaps the main reason why he’d chosen to become a bounty hunter was to prove that he could be something else than a good person. He’d thought he could always go back to meeker jobs whenever he wanted, give up his licence and open a bookshop in one of the big cities in the East. It could have been an adventure, a way to break everyone’s expectations.

Eventually, he’d ended up liking that adventure so much that he’d been a bounty hunter for fifteen years.

It had its downsides, like any job. Deep down, though, despite the dangers, the roaming and the vague, recurrent sense of loneliness that a bounty hunter’s life implied, Aziraphale knew that, if the job was done well, it paid fine.

Aziraphale wasn’t greedy. He liked soft mattresses, shelves stacked with rare tomes, fine dining and clean clothes, but only because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. This awareness allowed him to keep a remarkable amount of adaptability that was needed to survive in the West.

No, Aziraphale wasn’t greedy. He was only trying to put enough money together to enjoy a peaceful life, like the one he had in Eden Town. Or even better – perhaps he could settle down further to the West. He’d heard people talk of the lovely climate of California, with lots of fruit and a gentler sun. And he’d always been curious to see the ocean. He’d seen little lakes, he’d waded roaring rivers, but he’d yet to meet a floor of water so vast that he couldn’t see the other bank on the horizon. The thought was scary and exciting at the same time.

After fifteen years of that life, he was finally about to make it.

That stakeout was a perfect chance. Since Lady Plague would only ride along the main street with her criminal cronies, the plan was to shoot at the right moment, scaring her horse and making her fall off. Aziraphale was determined to catch her alive but, unfortunately, she was a dangerous woman, and his resolve was low on the probability list.

All in all, Aziraphale felt pretty confident in the success of his strategy. He’d planned everything in advance, looked for information for months, found the best spot to hide when they’d be riding through, made sure that Lady Plague would be unaware of who he was or of his presence there. His sight was excellent; he only needed spectacles when reading, but he still had no trouble spotting the farthest details in the distance. His rifle was loaded and his horse well-rested, in case he needed him.

He was ready.

But then, looking around, with his excellent sight he noticed two things – one expected, and another surprising.

The expected one was a cloud of dust starting to climb up towards the menacing sky, beyond the border of the town, from the end of the road, in the distance.

The surprising one, definitely closer to him in more than one way, was Crowley – black clothes and red hair, hesitating in front of the open door of the butcher’s shop.

He looked just as hopeless as he’d been when they used to play sheriff-and-bandit in Eden Town.

The thought of _Crowley_ actually being the good one of the two of them pounced back into Aziraphale’s mind with a brutality that was hard to ignore, this time.

Crowley wouldn’t hurt a fly, not even if his life depended on it, though he usually hid it nicely by complaining and mumbling and cursing and pretending to be some kind of extremely suave asshole. In fact, Aziraphale knew that Crowley was neither suave nor an asshole; and that was why he’d decided to be his friend from the very start, despite what the elders of Eden Town said about redheads.

_Some things never change…_

Still… there he was, playing bandit, exactly in front of the spot he’d chosen to hide and wait, gun in hand, for Lady Plague’s arrival.

Aziraphale knew that Crowley had never had it in him to do anything that would earn him a “Dead or Alive” poster. If he remembered him well (and he did), Crowley had a tendency to be impossibly nervous and make empty threats under pressure. He could picture him so vividly – waving his gun under the noses of defenseless people who probably didn’t even need to be intimidated. Aziraphale wasn’t surprised that Crowley hadn’t become famous, or exceedingly infamous, for the matter. He figured that he just… wasn’t made to be an outlaw.

Crowley seemed to make up his mind as he straightened (if _that thing_ he did could be labeled as “straightening”) his posture and marched towards the wooden building.

Aziraphale watched him stomp his feet in his flashy snakeskin boots. His hand, God bless the poor fool, was already on his holster, betraying his intentions before even going in.

Aziraphale sighed.

The sun had sunk further down. The trail of dust raised by Lady Plague and her followers was getting closer. The stormy clouds seemed to be thicker than mere minutes before.

The chapel bell rang. Half past six.

Aziraphale’s mind rearranged his priorities in a couple of seconds, after which he stood up from his rocking chair. The time to get ready had come.

\-------------------------

Inside the butcher’s shop, Crowley grimaced behind the neckerchief he’d pulled up to cover his nose and mouth.

This was _not_ going to be a harmless robbery like he’d hoped.

The butcher, for one, was… Well… he wasn’t the thirty-something sweet, clean, quiet man that he’d noticed earlier in the afternoon, wrapping up some cuts of meat for a little old lady.

On the contrary – he was sturdy. Burly, even. Middle-aged. And very serious.

Most importantly, he was fighting back, and Crowley wasn’t prepared for such an eventuality.

“Ya think I’d let ya rob my shop without an ounce of a fight?” the butcher yelled with a hoarse voice, with fire in his eyes and eloquent dark red spots on his apron.

“I have a _gun_ ,” Crowley pointed out for the third time in a little more than a minute. He didn’t sound convincing anymore, though. He hadn’t expected that much of a resistance and, as he was finding out, the words “I have a gun” started to lose their meaning and purpose if he repeated them more than once.

Waving a gun around had always been more than enough to scare people and convince them to give him the money. None of the aforementioned people, of course, had ever been like that butcher.

Crowley really didn’t want to shoot, and he was getting nervous, which was always a bad omen in itself. His focus was about to go down the drain, and he was just a few moments away from shaking. Still, one way or another he’d always come back to his family with a bounty, and he had no intention of failing because of something so stupid as nerves.

He tried again, hopefully for the last time. “Alright, I don’t actually want to hurt anybody here, so – I mean – gimme the cash and no-one gets-”

He ducked just in time to avoid a sharp knife thrown towards his head with alarming precision. He glanced behind his shoulder and saw the three-fingers-wide blade stick into the wooden wall with a dry sound.

He faced the butcher again. The burly man had another weapon in his hand already: a small hatchet, the kind used to cut through bones and slaughter animals to thick cuts of meat.

Crowley gulped, scrambling to his feet. The palm of his hand holding the gun began to sweat. _Very_ bad omen. His grandfather, God bless him, once had told him, “When ya have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.” He was learning that lesson with some regrettable delay.

Crowley was losing his grip, both physically and metaphorically, on the revolver and the situation. He doubted he’d even had any grip on the latter at all. he was just petrified on the spot, nailed there by the shock of an eventuality he hadn’t seen coming. He felt stupid. An adequate idiot.

“Whoever told ya that load of bullshit about guns bein’ more powerful ‘n knives hasn’t talked to _me_.” The butcher was speaking with a nice amount of purpose in his voice, and he sounded like he was even having fun. “This is _my_ shop, you twig, an’ _I_ ’m the one t’say when and _if_ I’m goin’ to hand over any cash. Got it?” He raised the hatchet and Crowley, like the bundle of nerves he was, jumped.

The butcher grinned, showing a golden tooth. “Left ya dumbstruck, uh? Good. Now get out n’ stay there in the street where I can see ya ‘til Angel Eyes comes by an’ picks ya up.”

Crowley’s eyes widened behind the sunglasses. “Is that… ‘s that the- the blond bounty killer?”

“That’s him alright,” the butcher grinned. “’S been ‘round here for some days already – very polite, very _respectable_. Always tips his hat when he passes by. Ya oughta learn some manners from _him_.”

Something inside Crowley snapped at those words. Rage made him lose control entirely as he raised his voice. “Don’t talk to me about _polite_. I know that man better ‘n ya ever will.” _Absolutely_ bad _sign_ , the last coherent part of his mind whispered to him.

“’Course ya know him, y’re a fuckin’ criminal. His job’s to catch people like _you_. Now get the hell outta my shop!” roared the butcher, his face turning a worryingly red hue. Crowley also thought he saw the corners of the butcher’s mouth start frothing, but he wasn’t sure, nor had he any intention to check.

Crowley’s anger had immediately switched to self-preservation. He just wanted to get the hell out of there. Forget the cash. He could always find a solution on the way back. If he got lucky, perhaps he’d stumble on a buried treasure. If he got a little less lucky, which was dishearteningly more probable, perhaps he could rob a little old lady on the way back… That is, if she didn’t end up stabbing him with her knitting needles first. By then, he was ready to expect anything.

Crowley hurried out of the shop, haunted by the butcher’s manic laugh, and as he made to his horse, still hitched at the post nearby, many things happened at once.

Firstly, he tripped and fell flat to the ground in the middle of the street, his gun slipping from his fingers and landing at a short distance without going off.

Then, as he tried to reach for it, he heard a loud gunshot and he yelped with the realization that the bullet had landed dangerously close to his hand.

Finally, as he turned his head to see where the shooter was, he felt the blood in his veins freezing over. He didn’t see until the last moment the charge of horses moving at full speed that was about to crash straight into him. The ground was shaking slightly in tight waves under the hooves, the air was whipped by the riders’ mindless, enthusiastic shouts, and he was there, right in the middle of the main – and only – street.

With no time to stand up and run away, a last flash of instinct told him to curl into a ball just as several of those hellish galloping beasts jumped over him, leaving him unscathed.

The whole series of event took just a handful of seconds to be over. Crowley was left there, panting in the middle of the dusty street and slowly uncurling. He heard some people mutter in concern, probably peeking out of their wooden houses and shops, and the butcher’s laugh was still echoing loud and clear.

Surviving a revolver that didn’t go off, a gunshot aimed to his hand and a whole damn incoming charge of riders in such a short amount of time were all things that didn’t surprise Crowley very much. He would have called them “miracles”, if he hadn’t already survived a confrontation with a knife-throwing butcher. _That_ felt like a miracle, and he didn’t think he deserved more than the one.

Crowley had to admit that, even if his life wasn’t the way he wanted, even if he ultimately did _not_ like his job, he had luck. Fucking luck to spare. It had always been like that, yet every time it was unexpected and surprising. It felt like an undeserved and mildly irritating blessing.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the charge had already vanished beyond the town borders and into the desert. Their war-like cries echoed and lingered under the sun long after they had left.

As soon as he was sure that they were all gone, Crowley reached for his own revolver again, but again he couldn’t. The stock of a rifle turned him over and pressed down on his chest. Soon after, it was joined by a boot that came down to block his wrist, pressing it to the ground just enough to keep him still, but not enough to hurt him.

He looked up.

Aziraphale’s ice blue eyes were studying him from under the shade of his hat. They, too, pinned him along with the boot and the rifle.

“Well, well, well. It looks like someone has been caught red-handed in the middle of a charge.” A soft, patient smile. “Haven’t you, Lil’ Tony?”

After a single thunderclap that sounded like a last, useless warning, rain began to fall, and Crowley couldn’t hear whether Aziraphale was laughing or not.

\-------------------------

After a night spent locked inside the butcher’s shop among dangling carcasses, with no possible escape but a restless sleep, the morning brought Crowley sunlight, heat, the open air and, surprising no one, Aziraphale again.

The butcher, who had mounted guard outside of the shop all night with a worryingly gleeful but unsurprising zeal, handed Crowley over with an all-too-pleased smile on his face.

“No use botherin’ our ol’ sheriff, Mr. Fell, sir,” the butcher had said the previous night, before locking Crowley in. “Me, I’m gonna keep a sharp eye on this one. Pity I can’t make him join the other stock hangin’ in my shop. If ya know what I mean.” And he’d elbowed Aziraphale with a booming laugh that had been barely reciprocated by his polite but tense smile.

The sorry scene had been witnessed by the same slim, young and peaceful apprentice from the day before, who Crowley had discovered to be the butcher’s son. To be pitied by _him_ had been the final, humiliating nail in Crowley’s coffin of shame. Even his horse had been claimed by that ogre who passed himself for a butcher, as compensation (what for, nobody knew). Crowley was now left on foot.

Aziraphale made Crowley walk before him to the border of that bloody town, where Aziraphale’s horse had been waiting for him, as ready and alert as a watchdog.

Crowley obeyed without protesting. Of course he wanted to escape, but it simply wasn’t safe now. Not with the whole population knowing about him by then, and with Aziraphale acting as an unwanted guardian.

When they stopped, Aziraphale clicked his tongue. “Robbing a butcher, and one like _him_ , of all people? God’s sake!” He smirked, holding both of Crowley’s wrists firmly in his left hand and looking straight into his dark glasses. “My dear Crowley. I thought you had more common sense in that old skull of yours.”

“Thought the butcher was the young one,” Crowley said, “not that human mountain.” Spoken aloud, his excuse sounded unequivocally lame and stupid. He should have been more careful, checked more thoroughly before taking action. He’d really come _this_ close to being skewered.

Some time before, Crowley had started to doubt that he was any good at his job. For starters, he was too soft. He knew how to use a gun, of course, and he could use it well even with his glasses on, but he’d always hoped _not_ to have to shoot. Besides, his nerves threatened to blow up every other day; that was why he chose carefully his targets, aiming at defenseless people who only needed the flash of a gun to surrender all their money.

The strategy had always worked. Well… until recently, at least.

Unfortunately, his family was aware of his disposition, and they were all too eager to remind him of his incompetence. In their own words, they let him stay only because, one way or another, he had miraculously brought home the bacon every time. The fact that they sounded surprised whenever they welcomed him back unscathed _and_ with cash _and_ with a horse did nothing to strengthen whatever bond he still had with them.

“Ah, yes. I see now. You must’ve seen Aaron, Mr. Holland’s son. He’s still learning the business, but it’s his father who owns… Well, anyway, whatever your reasons, you’ve had the bad idea of trying to rob the wrong person _and_ running into me as I was about to catch a bigger fish than you. No offense. And, may I remind you, it so happens that I am a sort of… hereditary enemy to you, now.”

Crowley, being Crowley, had a lot of questions about that little speech – among which there were “ _What or who do you mean by ‘bigger fish’?_ ” and “ _Who the bloody Hell cares what that ogre’s son’s name is?_ ”

Instead, he asked about a more pragmatic and pressing matter. “Listen, Aziraphale, is this whole sham really necessary? You, manhandling me like this?” He tried twisting like an eel to prove his point, but Aziraphale’s hand was strong – he had always been strong, dammit – and it was more than broad enough to hold both his wrists firmly in place on his stomach. Strong enough to keep him there altogether.

Aziraphale detached a rope from one of the saddle hooks with his right hand, and the thing fell to the ground with a soft thud.

“Oh, we may be long-time friends, my dear,” Aziraphale said, starting to pass the rope around both his wrists, “but unfortunately I still have a job to do. Just like you have. I’m afraid living isn’t free these days, you know.”

“I know it way too well, _Angel Eyes_ ,” he snarled back. He tried a tentative pull, but the rope was already shaped into a slip knot and it only got tighter with his sharp movements.

Aziraphale’s eyes darted upwards with some exasperation, but he didn’t say anything about the nickname. It must have been widely used, then. “Don’t fight back, Crowley. I say this as a friend.” He twisted Crowley’s arm slightly, making him wince, and finished tying the knot. “We’re going to a place that I think you’re not going to like, but you have to trust me. I won’t hurt you. This rope’s just temporary, to keep up appearances. It’s going to take us some hours to get there, and I need you to help me with the directions, so we better get going.”

“Well, I don’t think I can _trust_ you now, when you’ve been, y’know, tyin’ me up like a hog for slaughter and twistin’ my arm like that.”

“Again, keeping up appearances. Still, I admit…”

Aziraphale paused and watched Crowley with interest, like he’d done the day before in the saloon. He twirled the end of the rope in his hand again and again, forming tight circles around his fingers.

Crowley had the sudden impression of being some kind of livestock, a distant, too skinny relative of the bull Aziraphale had soothed years before. “What?” he asked, made uneasy by his silence.

Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled, and honestly Crowley didn’t know what to do with that. “…It _is_ a bit funny, too. Seeing you like this.”

“Me, I don’t find anythin’ funny here,” Crowley grumbled, waving his joined wrists and shaking the rope.

Aziraphale laughed. “It’s like playing, like when we were children. Good guy, bad guy… This time we’re serious, though, aren’t we?” And he climbed on his horse with surprising deftness.

“Well, I was almost butchered by a madman, trampled by a bunch of wild riders, and shot in the hand by _you_ ,” Crowley pointed out. “This ain’t called playin’, where we both come from.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “Oh, please. My eyesight is still tip-top.”

“Oh yeah? Then why did you…?”

The silence that fell between them was too long and felt too uncomfortable not to mean anything. Especially when Aziraphale kept staring at him like that. With that smile.

Eventually, a thought dawned in Crowley’s mind.

“…You… you missed my hand _on purpose_.” Crowley was gaping. “I don’t know who or what the Hell you were aiming at but, by God, Aziraphale, you _must_ have missed on purpose.”

Aziraphale didn’t answer. He tore his eyes away, suddenly fussing with a buckle on the saddle.

“Why?”

Aziraphale stayed quiet for a handful of seconds, then he spoke slowly and with intention. “I guess you could say that… even an outlaw like you must have a protector. Don’t you think?” He still didn’t look at him.

Crowley gaped again. It was the last answer he’d expected to get.

_A golden-haired guardian angel who watches over me._

“I shot close to you as a warning,” Aziraphale went on to explain. “I don’t know how – your nerves, perhaps – but you hadn’t realised that there was a charge coming your way, and if you’d moved to retrieve your gun, the horses _would_ have trampled you. The safest solution was to warn you so that you could duck, somehow, and make yourself an easily avoidable obstacle. Which, luckily, you did.”

“But… but your target?”

Aziraphale scratched his own ear lightly, weighing his answer. “Maybe next time,” he shrugged eventually, with a sheepish smile that clashed with his new tough look.

It reminded Crowley of the young man he’d been.

Noticing that Crowley’s brow was furrowed in a doubtful expression, Aziraphale hastened to add, “What – you think I’d leave you to that… that brute, or to be trampled, just to catch someone else?”

It was strange but satisfying, hearing Aziraphale talk about the butcher like that. And making him flustered at the most surprising moments was oddly pleasant. It _did_ look a bit like the good old days of their youth.

Still, Crowley didn’t know how to answer. He wondered how to put together the facts that they were still friends and that Aziraphale was probably leading him to a prison, or some equally unpleasant destination he hadn’t figured out yet.

Aziraphale probably took his silence for a tacit agreement, because he changed his tone and said, “Now, Crowley, be the good old friend you said you are. Walk.”

“Technically, _you_ ’re the one on the horse,” he hissed back. “And I never said I was _good_.”

Aziraphale ignored the remark. “Just make sure to keep up.”

They started their journey – Aziraphale on horseback, Crowley on foot – and sooner than they realized, the border town was but a far speck behind them, smaller and smaller under the morning sun. Eventually, if they’d turned back, they would have seen it had vanished at the end of the road, swallowed up again by the desert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently editing ch. 3!  
> From now on, updates could be a little slower, for two reasons. First of all and unfortunately, I am a slow writer; and secondly, I'm going to try to spin two plates at the same time and make progress both with this story and with my Musicians AU, [Of Harpsichord and Falsetto](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938547/chapters/49779695). Feel free to check it out, if you’re interested. :)
> 
> Just a handful of days ago, Maestro Ennio Morricone passed away. The news, of course, saddened me. Morricone was the composer, among countless wonderful movie soundtracks, of the score for Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, which is a major source of inspiration for this AU. (If you look closely, you may notice a good number of quotes and tropes taken directly from those three movies.)  
> I always listen to the Dollar Trilogy soundtrack whenever I’m writing or editing this AU; therefore, I feel the story is somehow written by him too. Ciao, Maestro!
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr. :)


	3. Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gunshot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are with ch. 3! Thank you for your patience.  
> Once again, thanks to my thoughtful and wonderful beta, [TheKnittingJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi) and to my trusted Ameri-pickers, [chewb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewb/works) and [ZehWulf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZehWulf/pseuds/ZehWulf)! What would I do without them?  
> Special thanks also to [racketghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racketghost/works) for their insight on gunshot wounds and tending. <3  
> CW: unhealthy family dynamics, blood.

In the lazy, scorching, sweat-inducing breeze sweeping the road during the late afternoon, Good Boy the horse rode slowly, one hoof after the other. The road was clear-cut, almost constantly straight with some wide twists and turns that followed the natural landscape.

On Good Boy was Aziraphale, a serene and unreadable smile on his face. Good Boy, of course, was Aziraphale’s horse. Aziraphale had never been able to come up with a better name, and since he kept repeating that praise in their lonely journeys to and fro, it had stuck.

One of Aziraphale’s hands was holding the reins to steer the horse; the other rested on his thigh, gripping the other end of the rope that kept Crowley’s wrists tied up.

Crowley was walking alongside them, still trying to keep up like Aziraphale had suggested several hours before. He hadn’t complained much, and it went to his credit; still, the whole journey had taken them all day, and now it was almost supper time.

“Oi,” Crowley half-yelled, tugging the rope to call for attention. “I hope we’re near.”

Aziraphale breathed out a laugh. “You tell me – it’s _you_ who knows the way to get there and gave me directions.”

“I _know_. An’ ‘s not that we’re lost, exactly. We’re not far. Another half a mile, I think,” Crowley said between some huffing and puffing. “I’m just starting to feel, y’know… a little bit tired.”

“Do you need to rest again?” Aziraphale asked, genuinely concerned. “We can stop here, but I’m afraid there isn’t much shade, if that’s what you’re looking for…”

“Nah, ‘m fine,” Crowley grumbled, trying to quicken his pace for some seconds and leaving Aziraphale to wonder whether he was telling the truth. “Just want this damn trip under the sun to be over, honestly. Be done with it, reunite with the gang, and all that stuff.” He pulled a face.

It was clearly among the last things he wanted, but Aziraphale couldn’t take him where he was going anyway. He also couldn’t have left him to his destiny the day before. The very thought of that butcher joking about him being a dangling carcass in that shop made shivers run down his spine again.

Despite their friendship being still in place, Aziraphale felt they had drifted apart too much. He still liked to tease Crowley, but he couldn’t be seen fraternizing with a wanted outlaw in the open, if he wanted to keep his licence.

Taking Crowley back to his family without anyone noticing seemed the best course of action.

With the help of Crowley’s directions, they’d figured out the meeting place couldn’t be too far: Crowley had come into town at noon and he had planned to leave in the early evening. Still, now they were walking, not galloping, and that meant more time was necessary to get there.

Aziraphale halted the horse and offered Crowley his leather canteen. “At least have some water, dear. There’s still half of it in here. I don’t mind.”

Crowley accepted the uncorked container from Aziraphale’s hands without questions and gulped the water a little too voraciously. “Now, now,” Aziraphale scolded him, “I said I don’t mind, but don’t be greedy. I still need to drink during the rest of my ride, you know.”

They had lunched together some hours before. Aziraphale had trusted Crowley enough to loosen the knot around his wrists in order to let him maneuver the food more easily. He did this again so he could drink by himself.

Crowley may have been sweetly clumsy and a disaster at his job when his nerves got the best of him; still, Aziraphale knew that, when his mind was clear and relaxed, he would almost hear the cogs of Crowley’s mind start to work, turning and turning into endless, smart and overcomplicated calculations and reasoning.

Crowley would never be so foolish as to attempt an escape right then and there, trying to hurt and kill the rider only, perhaps, to frighten the horse and send it galloping away, with the provisions still tied to the saddle. He’d be left halfway through his destination, in the middle of the desert, with nothing to drink or to protect himself from potential attacks.

Besides, Aziraphale trusted in the fact that he’d saved Crowley’s life the day before. Crowley would never bite the hand that fed him. If anything, he’d stay because he felt indebted; and to be frank, Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether to feel embarrassed or irritated about it.

But most of all, Aziraphale wanted to trust that, even when on opposite sides, they were still friends.

(“Can I ask you a question?” Crowley said as Aziraphale was starting to unpack the salted meat and some biscuits to eat. If he’d been alone he would’ve had lunch on horseback just as usual, but Crowley undoubtedly needed rest after a long morning mostly spent keeping up with him.

Aziraphale simply arched an eyebrow at Crowley’s question and kept fumbling around in one of Good Boy’s saddle bags. He’d been wondering whether his horse could keep going a little longer, hopefully another twelve hours, since he’d fed and gave him water that same morning before going to tie Crowley up. Aziraphale could never be cruel to animals. At lunchtime the sun was blazing hot and the poor thing deserved rest as much as he and Crowley did.

Noticing Aziraphale’s silence as they ate, Crowley continued, “I’ve been wondering who you were after, back in that God-forsaken hellhole.”

Aziraphale snorted. He’d been expecting that question; still, he felt an inexplicable reluctance to answer…

What if Crowley had ties with the Riders? He was, after all, an outlaw. Talking to him could have been a nice way to get more information about them, and he trusted him, but not _that_ far. Not after all those years.

He gave one quick glance to Crowley out of the corner of his eyes. Scratched his beard. Chewed and gulped down a very dry, very salty hard biscuit.

Still… Still.

Aziraphale sighed. “Crowley, I’m… I’m not sure whether I should answer. For your own safety.”

“Ah, please. Stop bein’ so mysterious.” Crowley laughed. “‘For your own safety’… Come on. As if you were chasing the fuckin’ Riders of the Apocalypse.”

_Damn._ Aziraphale bit his own lip.

What was he thinking? _Of course_ Crowley knew them. Many people knew their names, and it was only all the more likely for outlaws.

Crowley’s laughter died quickly as soon as he took in Aziraphale’s expression. “You _are_ after ‘em.”

“Just… just one, actually.”

Some seconds passed.

Crowley made a sound that resembled a cough but that was actually more similar to a landslide. “And you… were about to catch one of ‘em? While I was trying to rob the butcher?”

“Yes, I… I was.”

“I see,” Crowley said.

Crowley was curious. He’d always been. Questions were his specialty, and Aziraphale had thought he was about to be interrogated some more. Yet, the topic was dropped and they said nothing else for the whole duration of their quick lunch.)

Crowley handed back the leather canteen with some reluctance. It weighed considerably less now. “Uh, thanks.”

“Anytime.”

The sun was considerably lower on the horizon when they finally reached a low hill. They climbed it easily to the top, and a tiny ghost town appeared in front of their eyes.

Crowley’s meeting point.

It was still relatively far away. Enough to keep an eye on it… or be spotted from there in turn.

Aziraphale studied it for a couple of seconds, then he immediately turned the horse back to hide the three of them properly behind the round peak of the hill. “So. Here we are, I guess.”

Good Boy huffed, as if to say, _It was about damn time._

“…Yeah,” Crowley said in a quiet tone.

Aziraphale dismounted the horse and proceeded to untie Crowley’s wrists with a deliberate slowness he couldn’t explain.

“Ya told me these ropes were all appearances,” Crowley grumbled. “Thought you were gonna untie me way sooner.”

“Well, I- changed my mind,” Aziraphale said.

“Ah! Don’t you trust me then?”

“Yes, of course I do…” The words rode out of Aziraphale’s mouth before he could take hold of them. “Only…”

“…Only, not enough anymore,” Crowley sighed. “Started judging books by their covers all of a sudden, uh?”

“I- well…”

_Why are we having this conversation now? We should just wave goodbye, part ways and… well, end of the story. Right?_

Crowley exhaled through his nose. Faint lines appeared at the corner of his eyes as he smiled and said, “I… didn’t remember you like this.”

“People change,” Aziraphale muttered, and took the rope away from his hands.

“I don’t think so, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale’s head shot up to look at him. Crowley massaged his newly-freed wrists silently for a few seconds, then tilted his sunglasses slightly downwards and peeked at him with a mischievous little smile.

“We’re always friends, deep down, aren’t we?”

“Well, obviously. I- I wouldn’t have rescued you otherwise.”

“Obviously,” Crowley quoted back at him.

“It’s just that I’m not who I used to be anymore. I’ve left Eden Town. That part of my life is over.”

“Well, I’ve left Eden Town, too. But I don’t think I’ve changed much.”

“Oh, please. You are an _outlaw_.”

It looked like he’d unwillingly touched a delicate subject, because Crowley grimaced. “That I am, apparently.”

“Yes. And- and we are on _opposite_ sides.” _Why am I still going on with this?_

“We are, formally,” Crowley conceded. “And yet you didn’t think twice before coming to my rescue and taking me back here.”

“I… I did think about it.” It had sounded more convincing when he’d said it in his mind.

“But you did it anyway! You got double standards, angel. No way t’ hide it.”

Aziraphale was still getting used to being called like that. People usually nicknamed him Angel Eyes, but being called just “angel” was something else altogether which he wasn’t accustomed to yet. It felt like a pair of very fancy shoes that still had to take the shape of his feet.

“Crowley, I don’t have double standards. It’s just that- well, we’re _friends_ , and that goes before everything, even before who you have chosen to be. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still a bounty hunter, and you’re still who you are, so next time… next time I’m not going to be as… as _merciful_ as yesterday.” He realized that at some point he’d began twisting his hands. There went being convincingly menacing. Looking for anything else to do, he took out his half-smoked cigar and busied himself lighting it.

In the silence that followed, Crowley’s face went very serious very slowly. “Do ya really think there’s gonna be a next time?”

Aziraphale felt a sting somewhere in his nape. He took a drag of the cigar and exhaled a small cloud of smoke. “I… I’m afraid I don’t.” He hadn’t really thought about it either, until then.

“Guessed so,” Crowley nodded with an unreadable expression.

Aziraphale put together what he hoped was an encouraging smile, probably managing only to make it look vaguely miserable, and shooed Crowley using his hands. “Now go, before I change my mind and I tie you up like a hog again.” A thin line of smoke drew a couple of circles in the air from the cigar between his fingers

Crowley gave him one last, wobbly smile. Sad, even. He adjusted his sunglasses on his eyes and walked away.

Aziraphale watched him go, unable to wipe a melancholic smile off his own face.

No hard feelings, no second thoughts. He’d go his way, and Crowley would go his own. He trusted Crowley.

But he didn’t trust his family and how they would react seeing him like that. No horse, no money, no gun.

He put out the cigar after having barely smoked it and put it away in its usual pocket. Then he went to retrieve his rifle from Good Boy’s saddle.

Not that he hoped to use it, of course. He didn’t think it would be needed either, but… one could never know. He wanted Crowley to get back safely to his family, and if something happened, if they ended up rejecting him somehow, well…

To be honest, he didn’t know exactly what he would do, even with a rifle. But he’d manage.

He lay down on his belly, hiding against the slope of the small hill and adjusting the weapon. The sun was about to disappear below the horizon already, and it cast Aziraphale’s long shadow on the slope where Good Boy was hidden.

It took Crowley a handful of minutes to reach the border of the ghost town, at which point he stopped. From his hideout, Aziraphale saw him raise his arms, proving to an invisible someone that he was unarmed. He even took his hat and sunglasses off.

_Some family…_

Aziraphale squinted. Was Crowley in actual danger of being shot? Was he overreacting? He huffed, trying to focus.

The rays of the sunset made Crowley’s hair look the same colour of the dusty ground, the same obsessive shade of red. It was distracting.

Eventually, Crowley walked into town safe and sound and disappeared from sight.

Aziraphale sighed and crawled down the side of the hill a little before getting back up to his feet.

It felt sad to see a friend go. For a day, he’d had company. Now he needed to get back to business and track down Lady Plague as soon as he could. She’d galloped through that tiny border town, and Aziraphale had a pretty clear idea of where they were headed.

His years of research pointed at a big reunion of the Riders, though it wasn’t clear what exactly they were plotting. But he had to see that reunion with his own two eyes. One could never be sure with bandit kings and queens like they were.

His dream of retirement, of a ranch in California had slipped just a little further away through his fingers. He’d come so close… He needed to get a hold back on it.

Aziraphale put the rifle back in its soft leather holster, fixed it on the saddle and decided to camp for the day. He’d have dinner with what was left of the food and he’d try to sleep for some hours next to Good Boy, leaving first thing in the morning for the nearest town. He could start looking for information about Lady Plague from there.

Aziraphale built a fire with some bush wood he found nearby, and he lit it a little further down the slope of the hill. Though lighting a fire next to a ghost town inhabited by outlaws couldn’t exactly be considered safe, he felt that Crowley’s family wouldn’t know he was a bounty hunter by then. And he could still be just a random lonesome rider trying to camp for the night.

He really was tired.

As the small fire was coming alive and started to burn and pop happily, Aziraphale realized that his only worry now was that of having dinner. To his own surprise, the thought made him a little sad.

\------------------

“So y’re back, uh.” Hastur stopped playing the mouth harp as soon as Crowley entered the tiny dining room with his cousin Eric in tow. “Fuckin’ finally.”

Crowley’s family was gathered in one of the better-preserved houses in that forlorn town.

“Hiya, Uncle Hastur,” Crowley shot back, mentally bracing himself. He’d been worried of his family’s reaction now that he’d really come back not only without any money, but also unarmed and on foot. Perhaps they’d throw a party just to roast him properly. They could even dance a little _You’ve finally met our poor expectations_ quadrille…

“No horse, no money, no gun,” Eric related merrily. Crowley cringed. He wished his cousin had just stayed to keep watch instead of actually walking in with him and putting his big mouth to use.

Hastur looked unimpressed. “I see. Back to your post, Eric.” The boy disappeared out of the room, but not before giving Crowley one of his confusing smiles.

As soon as Crowley had entered the room, a cohort of shamelessly prying eyes had landed on him. His family were five of the most appalling people he knew. His parents, Luke and Lily, had died years before as they tried to rob a bank together. Their untimely demise had taught the whole family to be more careful.

Now they were led by Uncle Hastur and Aunt Bee, Luke’s younger siblings. Dagon and Ligur, Crowley’s own siblings, completed the gang, together with Eric, a distant cousin that had tagged along some time later (even though no one was sure whose cousin he actually was).

They had started as good people and they had all become insufferable (hateful, even) because of the life they were forced to live. Still – Crowley sighed every time the thought crossed his mind – they were his family. Blood is thicker than water, and all that crap.

Crowley sat down at the dinner table. There was some chicken with a side of corn on a suspiciously greasy tray and the leftovers of what looked like an impromptu soup in a pot.

“Y’know, Tony, we were thinking of leaving, since you weren’t coming back. Thought someone had done you in at last.” Ligur actually laughed. Crowley just wanted to bang his brother’s face against a wall until he’d swallowed every single one of his teeth. He didn’t like the way Ligur always laughed at him. And he didn’t like the way his family said his name – like it had an unpleasant weight.

Instead, he settled on, “Unluckily for you, I’m back. ‘M not so easy to kill, me.”

He eyed the food on the table and reluctantly served himself some chicken and corn. He _was_ hungry, but… well – he hadn’t even been back for five minutes and he’d already had enough of his family sneering and glaring at him.

Aziraphale had warned him. _We’re going to a place that I think you’re not going to like._ He almost seemed to know Crowley better than himself. Perhaps he should’ve stuck with Aziraphale – should have started roaming the country with him and bid farewell to that sorry excuse for a family…

_You idiot_ , the rational part of his brain growled back immediately as he nibbled the corn, _he’s a bounty killer. He doesn’t trust you anymore, he just wanted to do you a favour. And he kills people like you every day for money. He wants to catch_ a Rider _, for fuck’s sake._

He shuddered.

_Stick with your kind, pray to Lady Luck and hopefully you’ll be good._

Still, he was not at ease. He felt indebted to Aziraphale and he didn’t like it. At all.

They had parted ways. Another encounter seemed unlikely, in Aziraphale’s opinion. (Crowley’s hopes begged to differ. If anything, just because of the prospect of having someone to talk to and to whom he didn’t feel he had to prove anything…) Anyway, if that was true, he would have never repaid him. Who could tell where Aziraphale’s hunt would take him? He could go to Mexico, or Canada, for what he knew. Chasing the Riders.

While he hoped Aziraphale caught his target, he also wished he’d stay safe. It was a pointless wish, though; Aziraphale was very capable of defending himself. No deus ex machina for Aziraphale to come to his rescue, no Lady Luck to show the way out: Aziraphale was simply skilled. Unlike him.

He bit down on the chicken leg, just to quench his frustration and admiration mixed together. Was there actually anything _he_ could do?

“You must have been as lucky as anything,” Aunt Bee told him just like she could read his mind, all sarcasm and sneer. “All alone in the desert. Poor soul.”

“Yeah,” Dagon butted in, showing her too-sharp teeth in a grin that made her look like a coyote. She had Crowley’s red hair, but her whole appearance was somehow cheerfully bleaker, as if she were always ready to show up at a funeral with an out-of-place smile. “How did ya get back here alive?”

Crowley stuffed his mouth with food in the hopes of muffling his own words. “I… had some help.” He was sure the interrogation would stop there.

He was, of course, very wrong.

Aunt Bee stopped piling up the plates and stared at him. “Help?”

“Yeah, I mean…” He made a vague gesture. “‘Cause of the desert an’ all.”

“Hey!” Ligur snapped a hand forward, as quick as a monstrous lizard's tongue, and clasped Crowley's bony forearm. "What happened to your wrists?" He held it under the light of the lamp, exposing the marks the rope had left after rubbing for several hours.

Crowley wished, not for the first time in his life, that he were stronger. And calmer under pressure.

"Who did this to ya?" repeated Ligur in a deathly silence.

"N-no one you know," Crowley stuttered. (His fucking _nerves_. They would be his undoing, one day.)

"Oh. Is it someone _you_ know, then? Mmh?" Ligur shifted his strong grip on his wrist, completely uncaring of the way it made Crowley wince. 

"I… I-"

"Tony, we're worried for our family,” Aunt Bee said. “An’ for your safety, of course," she added as an afterthought, looking at Crowley's wrist held in Ligur's hand. She narrowed her eyes and, before Crowley could understand what her intention was, she snatched the dark glasses away from his face, leaving them on the table. "Did ya take care of him?"

“‘Him’ who?”

“Don’t be an idiot. The one who took ya here. Y’ know it’s dangerous t’ have witnesses around, people who can tell where we are. We’re _wanted_ , in case you forgot.”

"'Course he didn't take care of him," Uncle Hastur grumbled. He was unnervingly smart in situations like that, when he could play dirty tricks on Crowley. "Otherwise, he would've come back on a horse. This poor moron must’ve let the bastard go."

"He’s not a bastard,” Crowley spat out before he could connect his brain to his mouth.

Uncle Hastur’s eyes gleamed in interest. “Ah. Ya _do_ know him then. An’ _purty_ well, it seems.”

Being watched by four pair of eyes at the same time was too much for Crowley’s precarious self-control. “Listen, guys, can’t we jus’… let it go for once?”

“Ya seem to like forgettin’ that we’re all wanted _and_ the Riders’re keeping an eye on us. No, we can’t let it go. The devil knows what you have told that man.”

Crowley shut himself in a stubborn silence, belatedly aware that it was as revealing as playing a dented card at a poker game.

Aunt Bee was the one to have the epiphany that changed the whole conversation for the worse. “Well, if ya don’t wanna tell us more, it means we know him too.”

Everyone stared with even more intent at Crowley, who by then was reconsidering the general unpleasantness of the failed robbery the day before. This _might_ be worse.

All of a sudden, they all started talking at the same time, without really listening to Crowley anymore.

“Y’re damn right, Bee…”

“Lemme guess. Must be someone from Eden Town.”

“N-no, I-”

“Someone who you were friends with already, since y’re havin’ all these scruples.”

“I didn’t say-”

“Ah. I know, I know! Must be that Aziraphale Fell. The lawyer’s son.”

“That fuckin’ sheriff!”

“What?! He’s not- We haven’t-”

“Ah-ha! Jackpot!”

“Of _course_! He was all buddy-buddy with Tony.”

“That fuckin’ sheriff, alright. Son of a…”

Crowley wished to become part of that ghost town, wished to be buried alive under the rotten wooden floorboards of that dingy dining room and never be seen again. He hadn’t told anything, and his family had discovered everything anyway, and somehow it felt like it was his fault. It felt like he’d betrayed Aziraphale.

“He must be camped ‘round here for the night. It’s our chance.” Uncle Hastur rubbed his hands together, a wicked and joyful glint in his coal-dark eyes. “We’re gonna make that holier-‘n-ya little bastard pay hard for not standing up against the eviction order. Finally!”

Crowley resigned himself to see his last scrap of self-respect fly out of the window and tried to say, “Aw, c’mon uncle, it was like… what, more ‘n fifteen years ago?”

“All the better. He must’ve forgotten by now. Won’t suspect a thing ‘til we _strike_.”

“We’ve already talked about it many times. He couldn’t have done anythin’. He had no business in the order, and standing up against the banks is impossible-”

“Says _you_ ,” Ligur cut him off. “You’d always been friends with him, and he didn’t raise a finger to keep you in Eden Town. Or did he?”

Crowley would have liked to answer somehow, but he found out that he couldn’t.

“Well, I think it’s settled,” Aunt Bee said after a brief silence, and the discussion ended there.

The whole family moved on to plotting and scheming frantically, without paying much more attention to Crowley. Eric was summoned and he confirmed that he could see a faint glow behind the slope of the low hill where Crowley had come from. Aziraphale was still there.

Crowley didn’t move even though he would have liked to rub a hand on his face. Was he really that tired? How could he have thought to stay there for the night without even moving a little further away? Dammit. One way or another, if Aziraphale survived this, he would kill him personally.

Crowley’s family hoped to ambush Aziraphale as soon as the fire had died out, when he would probably be asleep.

“And _you_ , of course, will have to do the job,” Aunt Bee concluded, looking Crowley in the eye.

Crowley frowned. He felt like he was about to go out of the frying pan and into the fire. “Me? Why the hell me? Aw, c’mon, guys, I’ve just come back, ya haven’t even asked properly what happened to me, I’ve barely had any rest, and you ask me t’ do another job?”

“Yeah, we do. No time to lose.”

Dagon grinned in her unsettling way. “Yeah! An’ if he’s still there, he won’t get all suspicious seeing ya come back. Y’re his _friend_ , ain’t ya?”

Aunt Bee started to clean the table. “An’ it’s high time ya did _somethin’_ for this family, Tony.”

“I’ve always got the job done, me.” He retrieved his dark glasses from the table and put them back on.

_Can’t they just give me a break, for fuck’s sake?_

“I mean somethin’ _else_ other than stealing candies from kids an’ stayin’ put.” Uncle Hastur squinted in the feeble light of the lamp. His eyes, as dark as the bottom of a well, searched deep into the black of Crowley’s sunglasses. “Surely ya won’t be running to your little friend to _warn_ him, will ya?”

“‘Course not,” Crowley said. For once his nerves didn’t betray him. Or maybe he was simply too tired.

“No horse,” were Uncle Hastur’s last instructions before sending him off. “We don’t want that bastard t’ hear ya. Jus’ take this and use it while he sleeps.” And he put a revolver in his hand.

\------------------

“Aziraphale?… Aziraphale, wake up. God. Fuck… _Angel_!”

In the haze of his sleep, Aziraphale heard Crowley’s voice howl quietly as he was being shaken.

He blinked his eyes open, still a bit groggy. He looked up, and as sure as death, there he was.

“Crowley? W-wha’…?”

“Didn’t hope to find you still here, but… jus’- you have t’ leave. _Now_. They’re after you.”

“Who?” Aziraphale was now wide awake. Without waiting for an answer, he jumped to his feet and frantically rolled and tied up the bedroll to Good Boy.

“My whole fuckin’ family, that’s who,” Crowley said as Aziraphale finished knotting the whole thing up and soothed his horse with careful strokes on his neck and mane. “They want revenge. I tried t’ convince them t’ let it all go, only they spotted the fire and sent me to… Well, they’re planning an ambush.”

Aziraphale frowned. He was just about to get on Good Boy, but he stilled. “Revenge? Whatever for?”

This only seemed to agitate Crowley more. “No time to explain, angel, just… fuck, you gotta run, dammit,” he gestured in a way that was in no way helping hide his nerves.

“Alright, but-”

There were some angry shouts in the distance. Then a shot.

They both looked in the direction of the ghost town. Aziraphale caught the glimpse of barrel of a gun twinkling faintly in the moonlight.

“Fuck,” Crowley said. “I’m fucked. If they catch us, we’re fucked.”

Aziraphale realized with delay that, getting the horse ready and packing up, they had shifted inch by inch in plain sight. This wouldn’t do.

“Don’t just stand there, Aziraphale,” Crowley hissed. “Jus’ go!”

Aziraphale frowned. “What about you?”

There were more people now at the border of the ghost town. Louder shouts that vaguely sounded like “Fuckin’ traitor” and “We’re gonna get ya both.”

“I’ll manage, I’m gonna stay here ‘n slow ‘em down. Jus’ get on that damn horse an’ _go_!”

“No. No, you have to come with me.”

“What?!”

There was another shot.

Crowley winced, his knee snapping slightly forward. He brought a hand to his left thigh, a gesture that looked too slow and too quick at the same time. He was now standing uncomfortably still, as if he could have collapsed at any moment.

Aziraphale felt Crowley’s panic becoming his own when he saw his long fingers stained with dark red. And more spreading on his jeans. Slowly.

He decided fast.

“Crowley. Crowley, listen to me. Can you get on?”

Crowley looked at him and then back at his blood-stained fingers with unfocused eyes. “I…”

“On the horse?” Aziraphale supplied, already striding towards him.

“’M not comin’,” Crowley slurred, opening his mouth a couple of times like a trout, swaying gently and dangerously in the night. “Gotta stay here, slow ‘em down. You go…”

Aziraphale put his arm around Crowley’s waist for support and forced him to walk, hoping not to worsen the situation. Crowley looked at him with unfocused eyes, but there was no time – Aziraphale heard the enraged shouts of Crowley’s relatives reach out in their direction once again. He only hoped they would be quick enough to avoid any other bullets.

“Aziraphale, ’m _not_ gonna come with-”

“Get on my horse, for fuck’s sake!”

This seemed to be enough to convince Crowley. “A-alright…”

“Good – let me help you. You stay on the front,” he instructed, checking that Crowley had a foot in the stirrup before helping him up and pushing upwards on his buttocks, politeness be damned. “Scoot forward, please.” Crowley did, and Aziraphale climbed up behind him.

“Now hold onto the horn.” It sounded stupid to give Crowley instructions at a time like that, when bullets were flying towards them and the shouts sounded more and more like slurs, but what if they got closer? They must’ve had horses, they could chase them and catch them, dear Lord-

They had to get away from there. “Hold tight, my dear. And for the love of God, try not to faint, or fall off the horse.”

As the cries and mixed curses from Crowley’s family faded away behind them, they rode at top speed into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently writing the first draft of ch. 4! I hope to have it ready as soon as possible.  
> Come say hello on [Tumblr](https://saretton.tumblr.com/). :)


	4. Shade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sanctuary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience. Ch. 4 is finally here! :)
> 
> Once again, thanks to my candy floss beta, [TheKnittingJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi), and to my incredible Ameri-pickers, [chewb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewb/works) and [ZehWulf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZehWulf/pseuds/ZehWulf)! They improve everything I'm writing here, a true team of superheroes!
> 
> And again, special thanks also to [racketghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racketghost/works) for their insight on gunshot wounds and tending! Their help has been particularly useful in this chapter.
> 
> Also! [Euterpein](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euterpein) has recorded the first chapter of this AU. Needless to say, I am currently speaking from my coffin - it's INCREDIBLE. Please go and listen to it, there's a link at the end of this very chapter! ;)
> 
> CW: mentions of blood and wounds.

In the shade of the night, Aziraphale’s horse finally started walking at a normal pace. Crowley had never particularly liked horses – riding them was a necessity more than anything else – and his current situation did nothing to improve the feeling.

The cool air made the uncomfortable throb on Crowley’s thigh feel even warmer, and his efforts to contain the bleeding with his hand were mostly ineffective. To make everything even more _exciting_ , he kept wondering what would happen if his family decided to pursue the two of them. Which, on second thought, was not likely. Or – or if they decided to tell the Riders about the whole thing. Now _that_ was more likely.

Mostly, though, his major concern was not to faint right there on the saddle after all the bumping and tossing of their recent ride. The whole experience had left him a little weak.

“Aziraphale,” he said over the steady sound of the horse’s hooves, “could we… could we stop for a minute?”

Aziraphale pulled the reins immediately and glanced behind him. “I’m not sure we’re far enough.”

“Yeah, uh… I’m… worried about this thing here, though.” Crowley took the hand off his thigh, but the sight of half-encrusted, half-fresh blood made him change his mind in an instant and he pressed it back on.

“Right. If you please…” Still sitting behind him, Aziraphale gently put his hand on Crowley’s, as if encouraging him to move it in order to check the wound.

An instinctual self-awareness bordering on shame overtook Crowley and he swatted Aziraphale’s hand away. He regretted it immediately. Why was he behaving like a child? What did he have to be ashamed of? He felt his face flushing as he stubbornly ignored Aziraphale.

“Unruly, are we? Well.” Aziraphale didn’t sound offended. He dismounted in an instant and – “If you would be so kind, sir.” He gestured like he’d just laid down a red carpet for Crowley to step on. He even had the gall to make that smirk he’d shown off in the saloon two days before.

“’M… fine here,” Crowley grumbled in his confusion, gripping the saddle a little tighter. He hadn’t realized until then that having Aziraphale behind him, against his back, had steadied him on the horse.

Aziraphale frowned a bit. “My dear fellow. You’ve lost blood. You are, by your own implicit admission, not at your best. I’d like to check that you’re not in grave danger, so I’d warmly recommend you to _behave_ and do as I say.”

“Aziraphale, ’m _fine_. Your horse can take it slow now-”

“Please sit down, Good Boy,” Aziraphale said – to the horse, apparently, since he obeyed.

Crowley had to hold onto the horn of the saddle with his free had to avoid falling, but he went on talking as best he could. “I-I _mean_ it, we can go on, find someplace t’ rest, an’ tomorrow- HEY!”

With a stern expression Aziraphale started lifting Crowley up from the saddle, holding him by the waist very carefully but also very purposefully, and pulling him down.

Crowley would have liked to put up some resistance, to prove that he was still able to get down by himself; but Aziraphale had caught him by surprise and all he could do was to grip his arm tight in protestation. He belatedly hoped not to smear Aziraphale’s soft coat with the half-dried blood on his left hand.

With Aziraphale’s guidance, he shifted carefully and safely from the saddle to the ground. The horse – Good Boy? _Really_? – only huffed once, shaking his mane, and that was a triumph for Crowley’s standards.

Aziraphale’s hands lingered on Crowley’s waist a little longer – surely to check that he was standing fine by himself. It all seemed a little awkward, though, and Crowley wasn’t sure whether it was because Aziraphale made no comment on it, or because during the whole maneuver Crowley didn’t look at him. Eventually, when he was sure enough, Aziraphale let go of his waist to put an arm around his shoulders.

Being helped like that made Crowley uneasy. He felt like a little child incapable of fending for himself.

"What the _fuck_ , Aziraphale. Couldn’t you have warned me first? Pulling me down like that."

"If you behave like a bronco, you're going to be treated like a bronco." Aziraphale scolded him lightly, still with that smug smirk and a glint in his eye.

“Okay, but… I mean. I really wish you stopped tossin’ me around like that.”

“Pfft. You’re loving it. And this isn’t _tossing_. If I tossed you, you’d know what tossing is alright.” Aziraphale laughed.

…He had to be joking. Right?

It sounded as if Crowley had just been served mulled wine when he’d been expecting a plain, familiar glass of water. Crowley didn’t know what to do with it. He eyed it, smelled it – was initially perplexed at this new development. Still, after tasting it, he couldn’t say he didn’t like it. On the contrary, he was pleasantly surprised by the flavor.

The persistent throbbing of his thigh dragged him back to more practical thoughts. He hissed in discomfort, and that got Aziraphale back on track as well.

"Well now – lie down. Hold still and be good.”

Back on his long legs, Aziraphale’s horse swayed his head slightly at those words, as if to say, “ _Just follow my lead, pal – just do as he says and he will call you Good Boy too._ ” Crowley resisted the urge to mock him and forced his focus back on Aziraphale’s words.

“We’re just going to take a look at your leg, see if there’s anything we can do. It, uhm. It shouldn’t be anything serious, luckily. Still…" He didn’t end the sentence.

Crowley managed to lie down and hold still, but as soon as he saw Aziraphale take his coat off, he craned his neck in surprise. "Now what the Hell are ya doin'?"

Aziraphale didn't answer. He just arched an eyebrow as both sleeves slid easily off his arms, leaving him in vest and shirt, his golden watch peeking from one of his vest pockets, and that iconic pale blue handkerchief covering his neck.

"'S _freezing_ out here, angel. It’s the middle of the fuckin’ _night_. Put that bloody coat back on."

Aziraphale turned the coat upside down and, to Crowley’s shock, started pulling at a slightly threadbare edge, ripping it into long strips of fabric with the aid of a pocketknife.

"What the…!" Crowley tried to sit up, but the fresh scab on his thigh parted up slightly and threatened to start bleeding again.

"Down, you!" Aziraphale shot him an icy look and Crowley just obeyed. He heard that damned horse snort, close to Aziraphale. He pointedly ignored him, and the steed in turn proceeded to witness the scene with vague disinterest.

As the strips of beige cloth grew progressively in number, Aziraphale piled them on the saddle. “Now,” he said, putting his coat – now so short it just reached his legs – back on, “would you please take your pants off.”

Crowley gaped.

“It wasn’t a question, Crowley.” Aziraphale made a funny face, as if he’d sucked a lemon and he were also trying very hard not to smile. “I have to clean and bandage your wound up. Even if it’s not that deep, it’s going to keep opening up otherwise.”

“But- but-”

“Do you want to clean that thing yourself?”

“Well, I don’t think I have all the-”

“Do _I_ have to _undress_ you?”

“N-no. I can manage.”

“Just like I thought. Good, then. Go on.”

Crowley grumbled, but obliged. He hoped the gloom would hide the embarrassing shade of red of his face. He carefully peeled his jeans down – tighter than a wet boot, they were; what had been on his mind when he’d chosen to wear them? – low enough to rest around his knees. Then he did the same with his blood-stained drawers to show the wound properly. Luckily his black shirt and the undershirt helped keep him covered, but the whole situation felt so absurd and weirdly intimate that Crowley felt his face burning up all the same.

He propped himself up on his forearms, hoping that the new angle could make his shirt slide further down and cover him better. “Jus’… jus’ be quick,” he muttered.

He didn’t know where to look. Might as well keep his eyes up and watch the starry sky. Anything but looking at his only friend who was about to do what he was about to do.

The silent and mystifying embroidered sheet of the black sky forced meditation on him. Crowley didn’t like it. With meditation, there always came confusion and guilt. And predictably…

…He had unwillingly trapped Aziraphale into this situation. And now, probably, Aziraphale was feeling forced to tend to him. What was driving him to help Crowley anyway? Some sort of obligation? Pity, even? Oh, for fuck’s sake. The mere idea made Crowley’s skin crawl. On the other hand, he’d always been such a damn good man, helping anybody and expecting nothing in return… The thought left Crowley powerless.

While Crowley was busy not getting answers from the stars, Aziraphale had approached him. He moved carefully, as if Crowley could have jumped up and run away at the slightest touch. He studied the wound again with scientific interest and sighed in relief. “Seems like it’s just a graze… It does bleed a lot, though.”

“Tough one to kill, I am.” Crowley tried to laugh and got just a wheeze out of his lungs instead.

Aziraphale smiled and went to retrieve a flask of whiskey from the bag. Crowley already knew where the whole thing was going and he winced as he reluctantly took his own hand away from the graze.

"Now this is going to sting a bit," Aziraphale said in his best bull-soothing voice as he untied the pale blue handkerchief around his neck, resting it on his arm. Crowley’s eyes widened. He’d never seen him without it, since he became the sheriff of Eden Town. The picture looked almost sacrilegious – Aziraphale, his neck bare, was about to use _that_ pale blue handkerchief, the one he always had around his neck, to clean Crowley’s wound.

Crowley watched him pour a small amount of alcohol on his own hands, rubbing them thoroughly on all sides, and on the handkerchief as well. "We both know it's only going to sting for a minute, don't we?" He took his small round spectacles from a small case in another of Good Boy’s saddle bags and put them on.

Crowley found it surprisingly difficult to answer. “Gonna catch a cold, with that ragged jacket,” he repeated without realising he was talking.

“Yes, well, you’re not in a position to speak right now, I think,” Aziraphale retorted, which made Crowley pull his shirt a little further down even if he was still completely covered. “And this baddie’s going to cause you an infection if you don’t let me work. I’m no doctor, but I can patch you up enough to take you where they can make you feel all better again.”

“Don’t think of me as ungrateful, but why all the bother?” Crowley hissed at the first stinging contact of the cloth on and around the half-formed scab.

Aziraphale hesitated. “You’re my friend,” he said eventually, and he started cleaning the wound with gentle touches of the handkerchief.

“That’s it? Even though we’re on opposite sides?” Crowley hissed again at a particularly sharp sting. Aziraphale paused again for a moment. “Even if now I’m the bad guy? Even when I could’ve- could’ve sold ya to my whole family in a heartbeat-”

“If you don’t stay still and quiet, I’m going to shove this handkerchief down your throat and leave you here to the vultures.” Aziraphale was getting exasperated and that finally convinced Crowley to shut up. “Deep breaths, now, please.”

Crowley still let out some hissing here and there, but he managed to say nothing even when Aziraphale started applying the makeshift bandages onto the graze, wetting them with more alcohol and tightening them so that they wouldn’t slip down.

Watching Aziraphale at work was fascinating. Despite his expectations, his strong fingers seemed transfigured, soft and gentle on Crowley’s skin. Aziraphale’s focus traced a slight line on his forehead, and the faint light of the night sky was clear enough to be reflected on his small round glasses. They kept sliding slowly down the slope of his nose. Crowley’s fingers itched to push them back up. Eventually he gave in before he could change his mind.

Aziraphale shot him a quick glance. He seemed surprised. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Better to see what y’re doin’, if you have to patch me up a little. Don’t ya think?” Crowley said with a smirk that felt warmer than he expected. “Luckily, the night’s bright.”

It earned him a quiet smile from Aziraphale, his cheeks rounded like small apples, the beard on his face shifting a little to host dimples underneath it. Crowley felt something in his hands twitch – he needed to touch those round cheeks, or to do something equally stupid but helpful, just like when he’d pushed his glasses up on his nose a moment before.

But why?

He did nothing like that, but the question still lingered on in his mind.

Aziraphale took some of the bandages from the saddle and crouched back down next to him. “I’ve been wondering.” His voice was low and pensive as he started pressing Crowley’s thigh slightly to keep the graze as closed as possible. ( _Ignore that_ , Crowley’s rational side told him. _Focus on the words, now_.) “I’ve been wondering what… what I’ve done to displease your whole family to such an extent.”

“ _Displease_ is not the word you’re looking for, angel.” Crowley tried to ignore the coming-and-going of Aziraphale’s fingers on his thigh as they wrapped the bandages slowly. “They’re fuckin’ enraged. They hate ya.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed, thank you,” Aziraphale cut him off with a huff. “And regardless, they involved you, too. They called you traitor and… and insulted you…”

Crowley thought he saw a grimace under the beard, but the whole situation – the bright night, the chilly desert, Crowley’s stinging wound, his strange reactions to friendly hands touching him, his mind floating with exhaustion – was so peculiar that he couldn’t have sworn on it.

Eventually Aziraphale broke the long silence that followed. “Well? Are you in the mood for some explanation? Or should I assume you’ll keep being vague about it?”

Crowley bit his lip and turned his eyes again to the sky. “I’d rather… not to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think that, y’know, _right now_ is the best moment. I mean… look at me, I’m here, bleedin’ like a steak… an’ you… well.” He gulped. Aziraphale didn’t answer, but he seemed to understand. This encouraged Crowley. “Also, I… think I feel guilty. About what happened tonight. And I definitely regret some things I’ve done.”

“Oh.” After a moment, Aziraphale added, “You’re not the only one,” and then he fell quiet.

Crowley was actually starting to be unnerved by all those half-explanations from both of them, but in that moment he really didn’t care, he just wanted it to be over with quickly. And possibly go to sleep soon (though he doubted that).

Aziraphale wrapped the final bandage around Crowley’s thigh and applied the final touches, tucking the loose end tightly. “All done. It should last a few hours, I hope.”

“Well, uhm. Thanks.”

“No problem. It’s not a deep graze at all, actually, though I don’t trust it to leave it to its own devices. Better have it checked.”

After an awkward silence, Aziraphale cleared his throat. “You can… you can pull your pants back up now.”

“Oh. Right.”

As Crowley fastened the belt again, he watched Aziraphale putting away the whiskey flask and the dirty handkerchief. “So where are we going now?”

“I know a place. We’ll be safe there. I had a look at my map when I left you to your family, before going to sleep, and I was planning to make a stop there tomorrow, but then… you know. Here we are.”

“And what’d that place be?”

“It’s a convent.”

“A _convent_?!” Crowley swayed a little as Aziraphale helped him get back to his feet.

“Well, yes. I mean, not exactly – the Sisters there have a small infirmary and some beds for pilgrims and whatnot.”

Crowley’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are you talking ‘bout the Sisters of Charity?”

“Precisely.”

“Mmh.” Crowley didn’t trust the clergy. But – he trusted Aziraphale. And they really had no other options. “An’ ya want us both to stop there? You an’… well. An’ _me_?”

“Oh, they help anybody, don’t you worry about _that_. We’ll stay there just until your wound is healed, which hopefully won’t take long. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

Crowley decided not to comment on how Aziraphale kept saying “we”. We _’ll stay there._ We _’ll figure out what to do_ … He was too tired to think about it.

Aziraphale helped Crowley get back on the saddle. His horse, whose name _really_ was Good Boy apparently, eased under Crowley’s weight without protesting too much, and that was a small miracle in itself. Lady Luck seemed to be still on Crowley’s side.

\---------------

The convent was another couple of hours away. Good Boy, earning his name like he’d always done every day of his equine life, kept walking steadily, with Aziraphale guiding him on foot.

Aziraphale sighed with relief as soon as he saw the white walls of the building. All the windows were shut, with faint light filtering out through some of the shutters.

Aziraphale felt incredibly lucky, given the recent turn of events. When Crowley had given him directions to the small ghost town, he’d already made his mental plans and calculations to take Crowley there, then ride to the convent in the morning to have some proper rest and decide where to start looking for Lady Plague or any of the Riders next. Of course, he hadn’t expected to do that with Crowley.

He’d already stopped a couple of times at the Sisters of Charity in his coming-and-goings. He hadn’t come by in years, though, and he hoped the Sisters still remembered him. Despite their order’s name, they could be very suspicious before taking strangers in.

And indeed, when they finally arrived and he knocked on the front door, a pair of familiar eyes appeared just beyond the Judas hole and stared at him.

He adjusted Crowley’s arm on his shoulder to support his weight better and help him stand. “Hello, Sister. It’s… it’s me, Aziraphale Fell. Remember?”

The eyes narrowed and then lit up in recognition. Then they darted to Crowley, who gave a wobbly smile.

Aziraphale followed her gaze. “I… I have a wounded companion. He’s been shot in his thigh. He’s… he’s lost some blood – it’s not deep, but it needs to be checked and to rest…”

The eyes shifted back onto him.

“I was hoping to find shelter here.”

Crowley was wisely keeping silent. The last thing they needed was for him to provide his name.

A few seconds later, the Judas hole closed. After some clattering of chains and keys and locks, the door finally swung open, and a serious woman in a white bonnet and a plain brown frock appeared. A small silver cross hung from her waist, on a rosary.

“Come in. I’ll warn the Mother Superior.”

The courtyard was large and airy, painted a blinding white like the outside walls; there was a small chapel to the left, and what looked like an enclosure with coops, a pigsty and a small stable for the animals in the far right corner. Aziraphale remembered that one of the doors actually led to an inner garden and a conservatory, though he couldn’t spot which one.

The rest of the courtyard looked empty as ever, and the dust on the ground lay perfectly still in the silence of the night.

While Aziraphale and Crowley lingered in the middle of that empty space and Good Boy was left free to roam around for the time being, the Sister who had welcomed them went to wake up Mother Michaela, who Aziraphale remembered as a stern and practical woman. He hoped that being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night wouldn’t worsen her mood. Nobody likes having to get up earlier than usual; and certainly not a nun during the few hours of sleep she gets between Compline and Lauds.

Still, Aziraphale elbowed Crowley in a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. “See? No need to worry. We’re welcome here.”

But Crowley didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look at him. He just kept staring at the door inside which the Sister had disappeared and from where a tall, thin woman was just coming out, dressed in a simple white nightgown that peeked out from a brown dressing gown, equally plain. There she was, Mother Michaela, always with that deprecating smile that she bestowed so generously to everything and everyone. Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s anxiety radiating all around. He couldn’t blame him – it wasn’t really the best welcome anyone could have hoped. Still, this was the only place where he could find assistance, and Aziraphale was there to make sure of it.

The Mother, her untied bonnet only partially covering her strawberry blonde hair, welcomed them silently and nodded for them to follow her. Her only sign of acknowledgement towards Aziraphale was a pair of raised eyebrows. Aziraphale hadn’t expected anything else from her. She had always been like that. Still, it left a bitter taste in his mouth every time.

Mother Michaela led them inside one of the wings, down an intimidating and empty hallway dotted with doors and closed shutters on the windows. She opened a door halfway through it; Aziraphale and Crowley, struggling to keep up with her brusque step, stopped in front of it and glanced inside. The room had twin beds, a small squared window, two bedside tables, an old wardrobe and little else. “You’ll be sharing a room, I’m afraid.” Her first words were as dry as the desert.

“Won’t be a problem,” Aziraphale said.

Well… Perhaps it _would_ be a problem. Aziraphale wasn’t sure that Crowley would feel at ease after what had just happened. And on second thought, it _was_ a little awkward even for him… Tending to Crowley’s wound, as necessary as it had been, had felt strangely intimate. Way too intimate for a friendship; but it hadn’t felt wrong, either… In any case, if a single room was what they were offered, he supposed they’d have to take it.

Aziraphale held back a grimace. What was he thinking? Of course Crowley didn’t want him there; he’d want some privacy, at the very least. But Aziraphale was determined to make sure that he recovered properly. He would stay. They would deal with it.

Mother Michaela turned to Crowley, unperturbed by whatever weird expression was dancing on Aziraphale’s face. “Please lie down and disrobe, sir. Sister Uriel will come and tend to you in a minute.”

At that, Crowley’s distress definitely morphed into irritation, but he wisely kept silent and just nodded.

“You’re both free to move your personal belongings here and to stay with us until the wound is completely healed. Please do be quiet though. This is a place of worship, not an inn. Now if you’ll excuse me, I suggest you get some rest.”

“Thank you, Mother.” Aziraphale turned around to smile at her.

She was already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently writing the first draft of ch. 5. I hope to have next chapter ready soon, though at the moment I'm also focused on another project and therefore the next update may take a while. But we'll get there! :D
> 
> Come say hello on [Tumblr](https://saretton.tumblr.com/). :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] A Fistful of Omens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25716652) by [Euterpein](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euterpein/pseuds/Euterpein)




End file.
